Annie was excited! She had just finished college and God made it clear the next step on her great adventure was a one-year internship with AIA’s Sports Performance staff in Xenia, OH. She says, “I thought everything would fall perfectly into place. I thought I would instantly thrive with a brand-new chapter of my life.”
As with most adventures, “not everything was smooth sailing. I was not unhappy with my job and role within AIA, but as many of you can attest, transitioning from student life to adult life can be difficult.” Add some transition bumps and unanticipated challenges into the mix, and Annie began to feel some discontentment creeping into her life as it was time to consider a second year with AIA.
As she considered what to do next, she believed her time with AIA was not over. But each time she prayed about it, a strong force pushed against her with negative thoughts. Annie realized that these thoughts were not consistent with her identity in Christ. “Right away, I asked God to protect me and block these negative thoughts from entering my mind.” Ever since that prayer, she has experienced “extreme peace” about her decision to serve with AIA for a 2nd year.
Despite the variety of experiences and the opportunity to make a difference in the Sports Performance ministry, Annie discovered the key for her was that AIA was a “safe place” to transition into adult life. Annie’s faith in discovering her identity in Christ has blessed our ministry because we will be able to continue developing her leadership, and she is contributing significantly in her second year with us.
One of Annie’s second year roles will be to improve our internship program and help promote our intern recruiting efforts. Personally, I (Rick) have had the privilege of coaching Annie as she has begun planning and developing our new internship program so that our interns have an even better growth experience.
Please review our prayer page and support needs and lift up our ministry to the Lord. Click the following: November 2019 Newsletter to print a hard copy newsletter.
Praise God for Annie and many other interns who are pouring out their lives to reach another generation for Christ!
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During their initial training, interns participate in an object lesson which drives home the point that some people face challenges that others don’t. We talk about leveraging our resources for the sake of the body of Christ, just like in a church where different members have different gifts, but all the gifts are given by the Holy Spirit for the equipping of the saints.
A major focus of 
This is a very exciting summer for us. In addition to our regular work of managing 
In family news, we rejoiced to watch Elizabeth graduate from high school, which is a miracle we continually thank God for; we are preparing for Ellie’s wedding to Austin Church; and we recently learned we will be grandparents to Erica and Parrish’s first child.
AIA’s vision is to see Christ-followers on every team, in every sport, in every nation by using the platform of sports so that everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus; in other words, the Great Commission found in Matt 28:18-20.
players from around the country and took us to the Philippines. We knew we would be playing against university and professional teams and doing mission work, but we all discovered our plans pale in comparison to the plans God has for us.
clicking as if we had known each other for years. We were able to go so much further than surface level conversation and shared life together as men. We discovered what it means to be a man of God’s kingdom through His Word and the experiences He took us on. God grew each of us closer to Him and to the life He has for us.
really about. Many of us discovered our “why”-our foundational rock on which we will build for the rest of our lives. We discovered we can use our gifts and passions to bring glory to God. Using our play as our worship and our worship as our play, we can use basketball or whatever we do to be a spotlight for Jesus.
bigger than the scoreboard. It was so cool to fellowship with the teams after our games and share laughs, God’s love and the gospel story. It was counter-cultural in the realm of sport. It’s amazing that each one of us went on the same trip, did the same activities, and yet God worked in different ways in everyone. He marked us in ways that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.
The Rogers 